Succeed With Productivity And Quality

This book is the culmination of inter-firm comparisons done by the author of more than 4,000 companies in over 100 different industries. These productivity analyses and comparisons all show that virtually every organization, even the best, can learn from their competitors and counterparts, as well as from self-analysis, about how to achieve more and better through improved organization and utilization of their resources. Part I explains what productivity is and why it’s so important. Part II describes how productivity problems and opportunities can be identified through measurement and systematic analysis. While this is not a statistical textbook, it explains through simple and practical solutions how one can benefit from relevant measurement. Part III outlines how each individual person can improve their productivity and become significantly more efficient and effective. Part IV reviews how productivity can be enhanced through better planning, organization, use of time, knowledge, technology and resources. This basic and comprehensive book is intended for entrepreneurs, managers of local branches of large corporations, such as banks, business chains, as well as managers or aspiring managers in other private or public organizations. It is essential reading for students of business administration, economics, as well as managerial practices, and fills a hole in the training of students in all fields where they will manage people and resources. Professionals, other knowledge workers and technical people also benefit because their professional training usually concentrates on their specific expertise and not productivity improvement. Over the years it has become clear that even managers of the best organizations can benefit by learning from the experience of others.

What really sets the best managers above the rest? It’s their power to build a cadre of employees who have great inner work lives—consistently positive emotions; strong motivation; and favorable perceptions of the organization, their work, and their colleagues. The worst managers undermine inner work life, often unwittingly. As Teresa Amabile and Steven Kramer explain in The Progress Principle, seemingly mundane workday events can make or break employees’ inner work lives. But it’s forward momentum in meaningful work—progress—that creates the best inner work lives. Through rigorous analysis of nearly 12,000 diary entries provided by 238 employees in 7 companies, the authors explain how managers can foster progress and enhance inner work life every day. The book shows how to remove obstacles to progress, including meaningless tasks and toxic relationships. It also explains how to activate two forces that enable progress: (1) catalysts—events that directly facilitate project work, such as clear goals and autonomy—and (2) nourishers—interpersonal events that uplift workers, including encouragement and demonstrations of respect and collegiality. Brimming with honest examples from the companies studied, The Progress Principle equips aspiring and seasoned leaders alike with the insights they need to maximize their people’s performance.

Get the most out of this foundational reference and improve the productivity of your software teams. This open access book collects the wisdom of the 2017 "Dagstuhl" seminar on productivity in software engineering, a meeting of community leaders, who came together with the goal of rethinking traditional definitions and measures of productivity. The results of their work, Rethinking Productivity in Software Engineering, includes chapters covering definitions and core concepts related to productivity, guidelines for measuring productivity in specific contexts, best practices and pitfalls, and theories and open questions on productivity. You'll benefit from the many short chapters, each offering a focused discussion on one aspect of productivity in software engineering. Readers in many fields and industries will benefit from their collected work. Developers wanting to improve their personal productivity, will learn effective strategies for overcoming common issues that interfere with progress. Organizations thinking about building internal programs for measuring productivity of programmers and teams will learn best practices from industry and researchers in measuring productivity. And researchers can leverage the conceptual frameworks and rich body of literature in the book to effectively pursue new research directions. What You'll LearnReview the definitions and dimensions of software productivity See how time management is having the opposite of the intended effect Develop valuable dashboards Understand the impact of sensors on productivity Avoid software development waste Work with human-centered methods to measure productivity Look at the intersection of neuroscience and productivity Manage interruptions and context-switching Who Book Is For Industry developers and those responsible for seminar-style courses that include a segment on software developer productivity. Chapters are written for a generalist audience, without excessive use of technical terminology.

Ideal for any industry, this book gives a basic introduction to continuous improvement and provides a comprehensive overview of the quality improvement theory, methods, and basic tools. Written in a format to help those with little or no understanding of continuous quality improvement, the author provides basic guidelines that can be immediately applied to improve decision-making and problem-resolution.!--nl--If you are a new employee in an organization that has a quality program in place or an employer who needs a quick, and simple book about quality for your employees, this book meets those needs. The author uses easy-to-read, short chapters to explain the basics of quality, and uses common, real-life scenarios to demonstrate key points and concepts. The material is organized in a manner that makes it easier for the reader to use and benefit from the book in a short time.

This is the first book to draw together the evidence on the 'case' for skills and to examine the policies appropriate to achieving 'skills for all'. Learn to succeed: argues that raising skill levels is crucial to both economic success and social inclusion; demonstrates the benefits of higher skill levels to people, to companies and to communities; synthesises a wide range of materials in one convenient volume, providing a reference source on the issues; deals with the issues at both national and local levels; sets out a clear agenda for action. Learn to succeed is essential reading for policy makers and practitioners in national, regional and local government departments and agencies, and is also recommended for students and academics on courses at undergraduate and graduate level in applied economics, education or public policy.

Once, there was a remarkable person who led with love. Her company succeeded where its competitors struggled. Its customers were loyal, its employees loved to work there, and it was profitable year after year, for decades. This loving leader began her career as an executive secretary, yet the company's founder chose her to succeed him as president. When asked why, he said, "Because she knows how to love people to success." She is Colleen Barrett, President Emeritus of Southwest Airlines. Lead with LUV is an extraordinary, wide-ranging conversation between Barrett and the legendary Ken Blanchard, author of The One Minute Manager. Drawing on personal experience, Barrett and Blanchard reveal why leading with love is the most powerful way to lead and how it can help you achieve truly amazing levels of performance. In Leading at a Higher Level , Updated Edition, Blanchard and his colleagues bring together everything they've learned about world-class leadership. You'll discover how to create targets and visions based on the "triple bottom line"...and make sure people know who you are, where you're going, and the values that will guide your journey. From start to finish, this book extends Blanchard's breakthrough work on delivering legendary customer service, creating "raving fans," and building "Partnerships for Performance" that empower everyone who works for and with you. Updated throughout, this new edition contains two powerful, important new chapters: one on coaching to create higher-level leaders, and another on creating a higher-level culture throughout your organization. It also offers the definitive, most up-to-date techniques for leading yourself, individuals, teams, and entire organizations. Most importantly, it will help you dig deep within, discover the personal "leadership point of view" all great leaders possess-and apply it throughout your entire life.

Proven, 100% Practical Guidance for Making Scrum and Agile Work in Any Organization This is the definitive, realistic, actionable guide to starting fast with Scrum and agile-and then succeeding over the long haul. Leading agile consultant and practitioner Mike Cohn presents detailed recommendations, powerful tips, and real-world case studies drawn from his unparalleled experience helping hundreds of software organizations make Scrum and agile work. Succeeding with Agile is for pragmatic software professionals who want real answers to the most difficult challenges they face in implementing Scrum. Cohn covers every facet of the transition: getting started, helping individuals transition to new roles, structuring teams, scaling up, working with a distributed team, and finally, implementing effective metrics and continuous improvement. Throughout, Cohn presents "Things to Try Now" sections based on his most successful advice. Complementary "Objection" sections reproduce typical conversations with those resisting change and offer practical guidance for addressing their concerns. Coverage includes Practical ways to get started immediately-and "get good" fast Overcoming individual resistance to the changes Scrum requires Staffing Scrum projects and building effective teams Establishing "improvement communities" of people who are passionate about driving change Choosing which agile technical practices to use or experiment with Leading self-organizing teams Making the most of Scrum sprints, planning, and quality techniques Scaling Scrum to distributed, multiteam projects Using Scrum on projects with complex sequential processes or challenging compliance and governance requirements Understanding Scrum's impact on HR, facilities, and project management Whether you've completed a few sprints or multiple agile projects and whatever your role-manager, developer, coach, ScrumMaster, product owner, analyst, team lead, or project lead-this book will help you succeed with your very next project. Then, it will help you go much further: It will help you transform your entire development organization.

This book contains specific recommendations by world renowned experts for boosting productivity through quality and employee management techniques. It provides new understanding, backed by the experiences of close to two dozen major firms, of the day-to-day policies and practices that contribute to business success. The contributors, representing a broad cross-section of American and Japanese business and industry, provide guidelines for developing and implementing successful productivity improvement programs including creating awareness, measuring inputs and outputs, and follow-up. They show how companies have applied quality and productivity concepts to make profits and morale soar and how the successful implementation of quality circles improves quality and productivity, customer satisfaction, and employee morale. Introductory, integrative, and concluding chapters by coeditors Shetty and Buehler provide perspective and additional suggestions for combining theory and practice to create effective programs.